


The Quiet One

by insomniareader



Category: Warm Bodies (2013)
Genre: Origin Story, Original Character Death(s), Personal Trauma, slight PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 11:16:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3690186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insomniareader/pseuds/insomniareader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Nora comes to be at the Green Zone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Quiet One

Nora was always the quiet one. She had come to the Green Zone with not much but her wits, a gun, and a bloody stuffed animal. Her family had been a part of an independent faction trying to live without military assistance. Keeping on the move, helping others. The group of less than a dozen members had helped coordinate others like them and sent the weaker ones, the ones who wanted structure along to the GZ. Her parents. Loving people, generous, had been doctors, who before the pandemic had worked with missionaries, Doctors without Borders, FEMA, or just anyone who needed help. Nora was born in Zimbabwe. Spoke her first words in a broken Hungarian. Took her first steps in Thailand. Broke her arm in the Czech Republic. Had her first kiss at 8 with an Argentinian boy with kind eyes and a broken femur.

They were in Mexico when the disease first erupted. And they ran to America. Seeking refuge and safety and a sense of home. Nora was 9 and her brother Matthew was 12. The next five years were the longest they had stayed in one country ever.

She saw her mother die at age 14. Shortly after, her father. Then their whole group. She survived. Her brother had locked her in the trunk of a Toyota Avalon when the corpses had encircled their parents and the numbers weren’t going down, only rising, like the fear that was creeping up her throat. They had been running like her father had screamed for them to do, but Matt just stopped and scooped her into a bridal carry then dropped her into the closest deserted car. The tears had already started slipping down her face. “No… Please…” The whimpers were soft. She understood, in some way accepted, but she still tried. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and placed his favorite Glock in her hands.

“Take care of Lucy.” There was love in his eyes. As he dropped the lid and she heard the click, it echoed in her head like a gong. She kept her eyes open. Even through the darkness. Even through hearing the last muffled scream of Matt, because he was her brave brother, still worried about her while being dealt an agonizing death. Even through the tears, she kept her eyes open. And she kept quiet. With all the wet sounds outside of the trunk. The bone snapping, flesh rendering, and sloppy sounds painting a picture of gore.

She kept her eyes open and she kept quiet. For hours. Until everything was quiet. Until all she could hear was her heartbeat. Opening the trunk was harder than it seemed, but with a keychain light in the shape of Mount Fuji, she was able to decipher the instructions and manage the emergency release. She wished she hadn’t. Matt hadn’t gotten three steps form the car and he was spread at her feet. His eyes still open, skull torn to shreds. Swallowing the sob that threated to tear through her silence, she crouched and closed his eyes. Taking the wallet from his pocket, it’s Spiderman Velcro taunting her with his lost innocence. She slid it into her bunny, the secret pocket holding all her life belongings. A few photos, coins, a mini first aid kit and a Swiss army knife.

Nora made her way through all the people who had become her family. Alice, who was a trauma nurse and had deep dimples when she smiled. Frankie, former drill sergeant and he had a knack for making their food taste like more than campfire fare. Helen, a mother trying to find her two sons, she told the best stories. Greg, he was a police officer, he laughed the loudest and longest. Yasin, a history professor, he did the tightest French braids. And Magda, she was a former engineer, and managed to make a solar/pedal powered vehicle for their supplies. Nora visited each of their bodies, closing eyes when needed, and hoping they were dead for real. Luckily for her, all their brains were missing. Glancing at their caravan, which was still broken, allowing for the zombies to win. Knowing that anything she could salvage would just weigh her down, she grabbed a simple water bottle and her bunny, Lucy and headed east.

It took a long time for her to reach the Green Zone. A mythical place she had only seen from a distance, but knew the location by heart. As she approached the city, she heard footsteps, not taking any chances she hid and pulled Matt’s-her gun and flipped off the safety, chambered a bullet, and laid her finger along the barrel, ready to fire. Watching the street from her position she saw the soldiers march by, on alert and walking with a Humvee. After they had left her sight, she slowly uncoiled form her crouch and stepped forward, back against a wall, keeping her arms ahead of her and her footsteps parallel with her shoulders, just as Greg and Frankie had taught.

She tailed the soldiers, they were not subtle about their trail, not like she had been, or what she was used to. They were supposed to be unseen. Untraceable. That’s how she had lived for years. Tracking them was easy. They made a roundabout route through the city, only firing once or twice, then they approached the Zone. Staying a few hundred feet away, hiding behind a car, she watched them each getting scanned and allowed past the wall. Nora stayed there for close to an hour then bit her lip and stood.

There was now a clear line of sight from her to the guards. And from their straightened posture, she could tell that they saw her as well. Tucking her gun into the holster at the base of her back, taken from her father’s bag (with the happy birthday tag to Matt still on it), she walked forward slowly but steadily. Holding her hands out with Lucy grasped in her left hand, her yellow fur stained from years and from days ago, when she had lain her next to the bodies, not really watching what she had been doing.

Stopping close to twenty feet from the door, still near to a barricade, she spoke her first words in what had seemed like eternity. “My name is Nora… I… uh, seek asylum.” She could see the pity in their eyes as they took in her age, the brown dried blood streaking her arms and clothes, her battered animal. There were words exchanged over a radio, but in reality, she didn’t really focus, she was more focused on the graffiti littering the walls and buildings. There were stenciled bonies and warnings, a screaming child, but all she could see was a little rose someone had sprayed in the corner, it had seemingly sprouted from a crack, enduring.

So distracted she was startled when a hand fell onto her shoulder, most likely attempting to gain her attention, but it didn’t work. Or it did, just not the way the man had meant. She stepped back, dropped Lucy’s ears, revealing the wristband that kept her hanging on and bent her knees. Her right hand was quick, from years of repetitive practice, her gun was up and cradled with her left in milliseconds. Her thumb was hovering over the safety before she realized what had happened. The man in front of her had his hands up, but the others had tightened their grips on their weapons and were eyeing her warily.

There were soft footsteps approaching from the doors, and Nora tore her eyes from the soldier in front of her to meet the kind eyes of a man with greying hair coming towards her. He had his hand resting on his own gun but it was doing just that, resting. “Nora? Nora. Do you remember me?” Her eyes scanned his face once more and it did click. Colonel Grigio. He had met up with her parents once or twice before. She nodded slowly. “Good. Honey, I need you to holster your weapon. I know Franklin startled you, and I’m sure he regrets it, but we need to scan you before you can come in, and it would be safer with that away.” Like what her finger was laid against, it was as if he had spoken a trigger. Her eyes welled and her arms dropped.

He was there in an instant pulling her close and whispering words into her hair, her dirty, oily hair, but it didn’t matter to him. Her sobs were strong and body wrenching, it took her a while to calm, but in that time, he had secured her weapon but in her holster, a level of trust that shocked her to the core. He also had pulled them back away from the barricade, behind the soldiers, but still in front of the wall. When her eyes were finally able to stay open long enough to be scanned he explained it to her, protocol was protocol. When she finally had been checked, she was brought to his house, tear stained cheeks and all.

And she was quiet. As she was introduced to his daughter, a towheaded Julia, wearing cut offs and a stained tee. As Julia helped her change and take the first shower in close to 5 years. As she was shown to a room with an actual bed rather than a sleeping bag. As she refused to let go of Julia’s hand and slept curled next to her with tears streaming down her face once more.

She only broke her quiet to share her tale with the Colonel and as she found out, an eavesdropping Julia.

It took close to a year for her to find her voice again. To be able to crack a joke without thinking of how Matt would smile. To play a prank without thinking how Greg would laugh or Helen would frown. To even look at the Med tent without having a minor panic attack imagining her parents assessing and working, quiet confidence in their abilities.

She built her strength up from the bones left behind from the horror that had stripped her almost to the marrow. By doing her drills that Frankie and Greg had shown her. By braiding her hair tight and strong every morning, as Yasin had. By smiling the brightest she could at everyone she passed, for Alice. By retelling the best of Helen’s stories and sharing photos of Andrew and Mario, trying to find her sons for her. By pitching in with repairs, gaining the knowledge that Magda had relished in. And by living for her family, because the sacrifice they had made, the code they lived their life by, that was what she had now. And it was enough.

If she was quiet every now and again, well she was quiet. But only when she had to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god. This was just a feelings dump. I sat down to write a Nora/Kevin fic and instead... this happened. I still plan on writing the fic but I am a bit emotionally wrung. I may have teared up a little. I may just make it more chapters to this one/probably will. But as of right now, until it is fully complete. This will stay as it is. A bit of a heart wrenching one shot.


End file.
